I finished reading a really good book today. Happy happy.But you need to wait for my end-of-April reviews to hear more. I am finally deep into reworking my Korean superheroes story. So far, it’s just small edits and collating the comments from my crit group — the comments I happen to agree with, anyway — but much of tomorrow and Sunday will be taken up with shoulder/digital-grindstone interfacing. After that, we’ll see. I spent an hour this evening with a tiny class of mine, discussing the first page-and-a-half of the graphic novel V for Vendetta with my students, kind of …
Category: KOREA
Shocking (In a Good Way)
Today, during a break, a student told me that my class was shocking to him, in a good way. The reason? Basically, that unlike his other professors, I don’t ask a question with only one predetermined right answer in mind. I have the class entertain several different answers to a question, think about which one is important to them, and have them make decisions on what they want to focus. Sure, this is impossible in a math class, but this guy is a fashion design major, and he was saying my class was shocking because it’s different from his other …
House Concert
Went to a concert last weekend. It was a show at which Kang Tae Hwan and Park Chang-soo performed. “How did you know about him?” my girlfriend asked me, after the show. I had to be honest and admit that I have no idea how I first learned of Kang, but I know that anyone who’s searching for local free jazz in Korea is finally going to encounter his name. His name, but not his CDs. They’re very hard to find (more about that later). Kang’s approach to the saxophone reminds me of nobody else, really. Imagine taking the amount …
Didn’t Have To Exaggerate
Last summer the Yellow Dust from China featured centrally in my story “The Country of the Young”, which is currently still a pending submission at Asimov’s SF. While a lot of the story featured exaggerations — in technology, and in the frightening power that corporations can have in a society in political transition, — one thing I didn’t really exaggerate was the Yellow Dust. I didn’t have to, it’s scary enough on its own. For those of my friends whose Korean ability is as bad as mine, this this link to the article where I got the pic might be …
Hacking SK (Sky) Phones?
Anyone know anything about hacking an SK (Sky UM-7000 series) phone? After a long search, I’ve discovered that: Like every other website in Korea, it requires a Korean national ID, and the foreigner IDs don’t work. The website could register me by some alternate means, but it’s a rigmarole involving me having a freaking “sponsor” — just so I can download software in order to access my own phone. She’s understandably leery about entering all her personal information into a site for this purpose, given how little respect is given the privacy of customers these days (especially here). The necessary …
Rubrics, Rubik’s
It always struck me as weird that EFL teachers, once they get trained, start using technical terminology that sounds silly. Like “Rubric”, which always meant “lesson” in the old days but now seems to be “ranking system” or “evaluation system”, especially one with explicit markers to measure competency level. Me, I’m growing fundamentally opposed to any non-crucial grading, since grades, as an arbitrary and artificial system of hierarchic ranking, mostly distract people from the more useful feedback they receive. It’s a pragmatic objection as much as a philosophical one, here, since in my experience Korean students are conditioned to focus …
In News Today (Actually, Yesterday)
The front page of the newspaper I bought today included the following news items: Pyongyang’s still run by bastards, but they were promised money. To not give it to them is understandable since they’re also dishonest bastards, but it seems to me there must be a way to keep them at the table. Some of the money could be unfrozen. Or poisoned Hennessy. I really, really like the idea of poisoned Hennessy. The GNP is discussing recognizing North Korea as a sovereign state to reflect the softer-on-North-Korea attitudes of the general public. Who wants to talk about gulags and people …
Classroom Curiosities
The last few days (from around the end of last week) have been ceaselessly amusing. In my Media English class, we’re looking at Superman in some of his different incarnations, which means I have to do a Powerpoint up for next week, when I’ll do a talk on the stuff students aren’t likely to have been exposed to. We’ve been watching the pilot episode of the series Smallville and it’s been interesting, but their background seems limited. In my lecture, I’m going to broach the subject of “alternate history”, of adaptations, of continuity, and of course some of the basic …
Yi So-yeon
I figure as possible the biggest anglophone hard-SF geek in Korea, I should at least mention this on my blog. The Korea Times reported on Yi So-yeon recently, who may be the first Korean astronaut. I don’t know the other guy, but having seen the podcasted video interviews with her on SeoulGlow (which are worth your while) I’m familiar with her and therefore rooting for her. Michael’s been covering the story a lot better than I have, and I’m a few months behind on it, but I wanted at least to note it. One of the odd things I’ve noticed …
Because, Hey, it’s March 1st!
Haven’t done much writing lately, though a trip to the doctor’s office did afford me some time to read mor eof the book I’m mainly into right now, which is Adam Roberts’ Stone. I’ll have more to say about that later. Those who want to know which hospital it was can trawl through my archives for posts about recent hospital visits, but since my experiences have been mostly positive, and I’m not out to trash the hoint, I’ll just say that I went to a well-known hospital in Seoul. I was supposed to have a test that would help explain …